


dream in a box what will he do

by pine_storm_season



Series: loosely canon writings [3]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: anyway i find stuff like this really fascinating and did research a while ago about isolation sooo, here's this! fun times for the green bastard!, i wrote this days ago and keep forgetting to post it lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29053869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pine_storm_season/pseuds/pine_storm_season
Summary: dream got stuck in the prison and it is not good for him in the slightest.
Series: loosely canon writings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191365
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	dream in a box what will he do

**Author's Note:**

> i gave up on the title for this one lmao
> 
> warnings: manipulation from the pov of the manipulator, also dream thinks about tommy from the perspective of being his abuser so that's a thing, and uhh dream yeets himself into lava but not out actual suicidal intent he's just. uh. bored.

Dream didn't know how long it had been. From how many times he’d slept, he thought he'd been here maybe a week, but after the third day, it was hard to sleep. 

Not from guilt, no. A bitter laugh bubbled from his throat as the words crossed his mind. Simply the sort of sleeplessness that comes when days aren’t tiring enough, the sort when you're tired but you try to sleep and can only lie awake. 

Fatigue has settled heavy and crushing in Dream’s bones. 

Listlessness is a good word for it, Dream thinks. He paces the cell, heat from the lava washing over him as he gets too close, stalking in tight circles to try to tire himself enough to sleep. The empty books lie piled in a chest in the corner; Dream doesn't have the energy to write anything in them. Even if he did, what would he write? 

He snorts at the feeble attempt to entertain him. The feeble attempt to treat him kindly like a human when he was once a powerful, feared god. 

He supposes he still is, but weakened. Powerless, alone, out of his own domain. 

The irony amuses him, when he thinks too hard about it. Tommy needed people, and so Dream exiled him. Made him dependent on any scrap of affection he was thrown, and if he hadn’t pushed the boy slightly too far, Dream might’ve won then and there. 

And now the favor has been returned in kind. He supposes he deserves it, a bitter smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He supposes it's only fair. 

Dream absentmindedly knocks into the wall, the cool pressure slightly soothing. He does it again until his shoulder hurts from being thumped into obsidian. 

He wishes he still had his mask. He felt vulnerable without it on, and he only ever took it off on his own terms 

And the day when he failed. 

Cool fury floods into him as he thinks of Tommy, digging a hole in front of him with Sapnap’s pickaxe, unarmored but utterly safe. Dream himself, in fully enchanted netherite, cornered and trapped like an animal in front of the boy he nearly broke. 

Payback, he supposes. Returning the favor. 

He grins at the memory of how Tommy looked; shaking hands, battered and bruised, fear clear in the edges of his expression and the way he stood. But also the look on his face, ferocity and satisfaction at doing to Dream just what had done to him. 

If he hadn’t been so thrown off by the sudden switch in power, Dream would’ve taunted him for it. 

He settles himself down on the floor next to the lava, relishing in the heat washing over him. It was almost pitiful how that was the best way he could remind himself he was still alive. 

Dream finds it a sick kind of amusing that he and Tommy could be hurt so deeply by the same kind of isolation. Although, he thinks as an afterthought, so could anyone else. People needed other people, and no matter how hard Dream had tried to make it so, he wasn’t exempt from that. 

Bored, he twists into the lava, the burning pain oddly soothing. He’d studied Tommy in exile long enough to know that it wasn’t until numbness replaced the pain that he'd be in trouble. 

He wakes falling, landing with a splash in the pool of water made to catch him. His body is weak and shaky from the respawn, and he relishes in the cool grey fog left in his head. A brief comfort. 

His head thumps when he lets it fall against the obsidian walls. Dully, he wishes Sam had given him something to do. 

Dream thinks there's something poetic about being trapped here, in the prison he helped construct, in the very cell he would’ve left Tommy. 

Exile part two. There wouldn’t have been any coming back from that for the poor boy. Dream knows what isolation can do to someone. 

He wonders if it’d be better to not know. To not know how easily he could descend into madness, to not know how easily the lack of interaction could break him. 

If Sam hadn’t been monitoring every visit, Dream might’ve been able to get Tommy to stay here with him. Not straight-up, that was for sure. He knew there was no way in hell Tommy would agree to stay. 

But Dream knew Tommy. Knew how he worked. Given a couple of days of unchecked manipulation, he could probably get Tommy right back under his thumb. 

He cursed Punz’s name in his head. If that bastard hadn’t led the entire goddamn server to protect Tommy and Tubbo, Dream would’ve had Tommy pinned. Helpless to refuse, not when he and he alone held Tubbo’s life in his hands. 

It would take a week or two, Dream knew. A day for Tommy to calm down from it, and probably a week before he began to bend to Dream’s will. But once Tommy had cooled off from the rage Tubbo’s death would’ve sparked, Dream could hold Tubbo’s life over his head. 

_Just obey, and Tubbo doesn't have to stay dead. You can have your best friend back, as long as you **listen**. It's your fault he’s still dead, if you were only better he'd be here right now. _

So close, and yet so far. 

With a start, Dream realized he’d completely tuned out the cell around him. He shivered, rare fear flickering through him at how easily he had escaped to his head. 

He longed for people with an intensity that scared him. 

“I’m in control,” he muttered under his breath. “I'm the powerful one, I'm in control, I’m the god here and they’re all _fucking_ mortals.” 

It rang hollow. Dream knew he was on his last life. He knew that it only took one hasty step, one slip, one shred of leverage leaving him before he would be dead where he stood. 

He could only hope he made it to then. 

The elder guardian’s cry rang out, and Dream winced as a stab of pain poked him between the eyes. His limbs felt heavy, and he sank to the ground. He was trembling slightly. 

He heard pistons moving, and excitement flickered across his face before he schooled his expression into one of casual interest. Maybe it was Tommy again. That would be fun. 

But when the lava parted, it wasn’t Tommy that stood across the chasm. 

Sapnap stood there, hands clenched in fists at his side, staring Dream down with an intensity that startled him. Sam watched from further back, his expression unreadable. 

“Hey, Sap,” Dream called. 

“Don’t,” Sapnap said lowly. He stepped onto the stone brick bridge, and Dream moved up to stand right behind the netherite block wall. 

He was quiet as the small redstone machine carried him across the lava, not speaking even when he stepped off the stone onto the obsidian of Dream’s cell. 

“How’s it going?” Dream asked casually as the lava fell down behind them. The netherite lowered, but neither of them moved for a few seconds. 

Then Sapnap stepped forward, and maybe Dream’s reflexes had been slowed by the fatigue the guardians gave off, because he didn’t register Sapnap was bringing his hand back to punch him until pain washed across his face. 

“Ow,” he said, hand held up to the red mark. 

“Fuck you,” Sapnap hissed, and Dream could read him as easily as Tommy. Maybe not because he was easy to read, but Dream had spent enough time around Sapnap to read true fury in the shaking of his fists, in the way he met Dream’s eyes and didn't look away. 

“Understandable,” Dream said evenly. “I did some bad stuff.” 

_“You don't say,”_ Sapnap spat, shoving Dream back until his back hit the obsidian wall. Heat from the lava seeped through the dark stone. “You know what Tommy said you did to him?” 

Dream didn’t speak. He didn't need to. He knew Sapnap wanted to say it out loud, wanted to throw his crimes in his face as though to shock him into feeling guilt. 

“He said you blew up his stuff every fucking day, that you kept people from visiting and then told him they must not have cared, that you pretend to be his fucking _friend_ and were just _using him!”_

Dream could read between the lines. Sapnap wasn't just angry on Tommy's behalf; he wanted to know if their friendship had been a lie just like Tommy’s. He wanted to know if he had cared for an uncaring monster of a god masquerading as a human who could properly feel. 

If he played his cards right, he could cool Sapnap’s anger and spark some pity. 

“Tommy was different,” Dream said. “I…I did not mean to hurt Tommy like that. I went too far with trying to get him to change.” 

_Too far,_ the back of his mind whispered in amusement. _Not far enough, more like. If you’d broken him harder, he never would’ve left you in the first place._

He didn't let it show on his face, just continued speaking. 

“He was impulsive and didn’t think before doing things. I was trying to help him understand that sometimes his actions have consequences, but I went too far.” 

_“Bullshit,”_ Sapnap hissed, shoving Dream. He let the pain show on his face when his head hit the wall. “You fucking enjoyed it, I know what you told Tommy when he and Tubbo faced you. _I’m toying with my food._ That ring any bells, Dream?” 

“I…I got carried away,” Dream said, injecting remorse into his tone. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was cruel.” 

“Don't try to manipulate me,” Sapnap growled. He held his forearm over Dream’s throat and pressed lightly. Dream didn't fight, sensing that it was an attempt to regain a feeling of control. “I'm not gonna fucking fall for it. You’re a bastard with fucked-up feelings and you hurt a child so bad he was ready to fucking _die_ to get away from it and you expect me to believe a week in prison is enough to change you?” 

Dream didn’t speak. 

_“You can fucking rot here for all I care.”_

If he sparked Sapnap’s interest, he knew he would be back once his anger had cooled off. 

“I don’t doubt I will,” he said calmly. “But…” 

His mind flickered through a few different options before settling on one. _Don’t act smug, he'll be stubborn right back. Don’t threaten or he’ll just get madder. Pretend you're just trying to help and it won’t cause lasting damage._

“I do care for you, still. If you ever need help, you or Quackity or Karl or George, I'll help.” 

From the way Sapnap flinched back, Dream knew he had struck a nerve. Quackity only had one life left, and he could almost _hear_ Sapnap’s thoughts flickering between distrust, hurt, and worry. 

Dream held back the smile until Sapnap couldn’t see him anymore, and then he let it creep across his face. It would bother at the back of his brain until he would come back to ask Dream how to revive people. He’d pretend to be scared for his life, remind Sapnap that was the only reason he wasn’t dead yet. 

He knew how Sapnap worked. 

And despite the ache in the back of his head from being hit into the wall, he considered that a success.


End file.
